by Robert Pondiscio
June 30th, 2009
Tags: Ed Balls, parental involvement, truancy
Posted in Education News | 2 Comments »
…but so will you. Or else. Under a new vision for schools, parents could be fined if their children are unruly in class and their education is unsupported at home.
U.K. Schools Secretary Ed Balls has published a new ”white paper for education,” setting out plans for schools to get annual report cards, similar to New York City’s accountability system. The Guardian newspaper says the plan gives British parents a guarantee that their child will have ”a place at school or college for their child until the age of 18, a promise of one-to-one tuition if their child is falling behind and a personal tutor throughout secondary to give them pastoral support.”
In return, parents will be under new obligations to support their child at school. They will have to sign stricter home school agreements and face fines of up to £1,000, enforced by the courts, if they fail to meet the conditions.
“There must be real consequences for those parents who don’t take their responsibilities seriously,” said Mr. Balls in an interview last week. Interesting concept. Wonder how it’ll be enforced. Or if it can be.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 30th, 2009
Tags: ed policy, national journal
Posted in Educational Policy | 1 Comment »
The National Journal has debuted an education blog which boasts an impressive “panel of experts” weighing in on the issues of the day. Dozens of prominent names–Ed Secy. Arne Duncan, Sen. Michael Bennet, Randi Weingarten, Paul Vallas, Russ Whitehurst, Kati Haycock, Diane Ravitch, Steve Barr and Checker Finn to name merely a few. And many of these bold-faced names are apparently not merely lending their names as contributors, but actually posting. It goes to the top of the must-read edublog list on Day One.
It may look like an education expert petting zoo, except if you’re a teacher, administrator or parent, you can look but you can’t touch. Only the “panel of insiders” can post or even comment, and that’s too bad. There’s no shortage of wisdom in education beyond the powerful and well-connected. As impressive as they are, the insiders talk to each other at conferences, meetings and over lunch for a living.
National Journal…tear down this wall!
by Robert Pondiscio
June 30th, 2009
Tags: academic freedom, Curriculum, literature, reading lists
Posted in Curriculum, Education News | No Comments »
A New Hampshire high school teacher has resigned after igniting a controversy over her choice of assigned reading materials. Stories assigned by Kathleen Reilly included “The Crack Cocaine Diet” by Laura Lippman, and “I Like Guys” by David Sedaris. Reilly, who also served as the head of the English Department at Campbell High School in Litchfield, New Hampshire, assigned the stories as part of a short story unit on “love, gender and family units.”
In a June 19 email to a Union Leader reporter, Reilly explained that, “The first story, ‘The Crack Cocaine Diet,’ was not intended to glorify bad behavior; rather, it was chosen for its tone and point of view and to show the often devastating consequences of drug use. In addition to its tone and style, the message of the story ‘I Like Guys’ was respect and acceptance, not an advocacy for homosexuality.” In the email, Reilly added that the stories were not left up to the students’ interpretation alone because “we discuss them extensively.” However, parent Sue Ann Johnson has said the stories promoted bad behavior and a “political agenda,” and they shouldn’t be incorporated into classroom teachings.
The school has permanently eliminated “The Crack Cocaine Diet” from the list of acceptable reading materials, says School Superintendent Elaine Cutler. “The reason the books were pulled was because I believe that there wasn’t enough parent notification about the topics that were being covered,” she said. “So, it was parent notification and the developmental age of the students and that varies; all 16-year-olds are not created equal.” The short story course will be examined by a committee comprised of teachers, parents, students, the principal and the curriculum director.
I was unfamiliar with “The Crack Cocaine Diet,” and remain sympathetic to allowing teachers broad latitude in choosing literature. That said, two paragraphs is about all one needs before it might occur to most teachers that assigning this story to teenagers might just be asking for trouble.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 29th, 2009
Posted in Teaching | 28 Comments »
Is Twitter in the classroom a gimmick? Or can it really be an effective teaching tool? I’m agnostic.
“Using Twitter in a classroom setting can bring challenges, but some educators and students think it’s a tool that can boost the learning process,” notes a typical piece in U.S. News which goes on–also typically–to offer exactly no compelling examples.
I’ve been writing about teaching and technology in one form or another for over 15 years, so I’m no Luddite. If it works, I’m in. But I’ve yet to hear of an example of using Twitter in the classroom that uses it to deepen understanding, not just for bells and whistles. So here’s a challenge: give an example of effective use of Twitter in a K-8 classroom. There’s only one rule: you may not use the phrase ”student engagement” in your reply.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 25th, 2009
Tags: common core, national standards, PTA
Posted in Educational Policy | No Comments »
The National Parent Teacher Association has released a statement supporting the NGA and CCSSO effort to craft common national standards–a potentially powerfully ally. “It’s possible that having an organization that can reach parents in communities of all sizes across the country could help build support on the ground for the multi-state effort, as other factions weigh their options,” notes Edweek’s Sean Cavanagh.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 25th, 2009
Tags: Broader Bolder Coalition
Posted in accountability | 12 Comments »
The Broader, Bolder Approach to Education is out today with its recommendations on school accountability. As I write this, the report is not yet on BBA’s website, but many of the recommendations will be familiar to readers of Richard Rothstein’s Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right.
I suspect the recommendation that will be subject to the most discussion is the call for states to “provide for the inspection of districts and schools to ensure their contributions to satisfactory student performance in academic subject areas, as well as in the arts, citizenship, physical fitness and mental and physical health, work and other behavioral skills that will enable them to achieve success in a pluralistic society and complex global economy.” The report points that “school inspections as the core of state accountability systems” have precedent in places like England.
There is a lot to agree with in BBA’s insistence that a narrow focus on testing has had a deleterious impact on schools. But personally, I wonder if a schools inspectorate will make matters better or worse. Spend time in a struggling school in the weeks before a “quality review” and you’ll see an extraordinary amount of teaching and learning time going to cleaning classrooms, updating portfolios, making sure bulletin boards have up-to-date student work, etc. Having lived through a few such inspections, its tempting to suggest judging a school from a formal walk-around is like judging a household from a Thanksgiving dinner. Remember the grief your mom used to give you to clean up and mind your manners before company came? Now imagine mom’s livelihood depends on it. That’s a school in the weeks before quality review. It’s hard not to be skeptical that a visit from the inspectorate would be any less subject to gaming and distractions that a relentless focus on test prep.
Update: The report is here. Patrick “Eduflack” Riccards has a detailed summary here.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 24th, 2009
Tags: E. D. Hirsch, reading tests
Posted in Assessment and Testing, Core Knowledge | 1 Comment »
Dr. Yvonne Fournier, an education columnist for Scripps Howard, takes up E.D. Hirsch’s common sense call for state reading tests to reflect the content taught in each grade. Responding to a mother who complains that her A-student son’s poor performance on a reading comprehension test is keeping him out of his school of choice, Fournier notes the advantage conferred by the content knowledge accumulated by higher SES kids — “the type of kids who get to learn not just through school but through the vocabulary their educated parents use, the trips they can take, the camps they attend, the extracurricular activities their parents can pay for, weekends at the lake house, Internet access and more.”
Fournier’s advice for the parent? Clip Hirsch’s recent New York Times op-ed on testing and march to the district office:
Take a copy of Hirsch’s article to the person in charge of setting policy as to who gets into the better schools. Notify your school board and, if need be, the NAACP and your newspaper. Insist on your child’s report card to be taken as proof of his intellectual ability. He needs no further testing unless the school board wants to infer that your son’s teachers gave him his grades.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 24th, 2009
Posted in No category, Parents | 4 Comments »
Every now and then, you read a story that makes you wonder if you’ve been living in a cave. If this piece in Teusday’s Baltimore Sun is any indication, selling devices to parents afraid of getting separated from their children has become a big business.
GPS tracking devices with wander alerts emit beeps or vibrations when a child strays too far. Digital watches and apparel have high-decibel alarms. And there’s the SafetyTat, a waterproof tattoo created by a Baltimore-area mom who wanted to attach her phone number to her child; a half-million have been sold.
Half a million??!? How did I manage to miss all the tatted-up tykes wandering the streets? The takeaway: Sex sells. Paranoia sells more. Two predictions: 1. Somewhere a school or district will pass a rule requiring students get tattoed before they go on field trips. 2. Someone will post a comment telling me it’s already been happening.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 23rd, 2009
Posted in Education News | 5 Comments »
“That is like saying that because Romeo and Juliet committed teen suicide, we condone teen suicide. Kids know the difference. Like it or not, that is the way 14-year-old boys talk to each other.”
– John Whitehurst, chairman of the English department at Antioch High School, on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Parents at the school are complaining that by including it on the Chicago area school’s summer reading list, the school is condoning the use of profanity.
“Sure, some charter schools are lousy. But failure is part of innovation. Parents will quickly figure out if their kids’ school is lousy, and if they are allowed other choices, they’ll pull their kids out. The weak schools will die from lack of customers….By contrast, weak PUBLIC schools NEVER die. They wreck children’s’ lives decade after decade.”
– ABC News’ John Stossel, who calls Arne Duncan’s call for charter schools to become more active in weeding out bad apples “foolish top-down government-think.”
“The feng shui people believe you need to take the roof off buildings to allow bad chi to escape. Let’s hope this helps.”
–Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, on the efforts to “rebrand” No Child Left Behind, including dismantling the little red school house outside the Department of Education.
by Robert Pondiscio
June 23rd, 2009
Tags: teachers and parents
Posted in Parents, Teaching | 2 Comments »
Wall Street Journal blogger Sue Shellenbarger asks what’s a parent supposed to do when a child’s teacher is a rotten apple? And how do you know? Her children had many more good teachers than bad in public schools. But she describes a “dark chapter” in her family’s life–the year of the bad teacher:
Unknown to me, the teacher singled out my daughter for ridicule for her offbeat clothing choices. The teacher also made her a target of frequent criticism for the ideas she tried to bring up in class. The big picture was no better; students in the class made poor progress in reading and arithmetic….I should have realized far sooner that my daughter had been dealt a losing card. But my daughter said nothing. I was concerned that her interest in school seemed to dip that year, but she internalized most of her distress, blaming herself, she finally told me years later. Meanwhile, this teacher had a great reputation among parents. She had a warm, hip façade; she knew how to meet-and-greet, and she always behaved well when I volunteered in the classroom. We live and learn.
In this case, she writes, the system works. The teacher was pressured by the principal to depart and is no longer teaching. Still, parents are unaware until too late, she notes, that their children have been dealt a losing hand. Most of the commenters on the WSJ tend to agree. One teacher, writes one, ”berated and humiliated my child in front of her class to the point where I later discovered “How to Commit Suicide Painlessly” websites on her laptop. My child admitted it was the teacher who pushed her to the edge.”
